stefansson-wrangel-09-13-015-001a

New York, Sept. 4, 1923.

My dear Stef.:

Before you get this letter the subject of it will probably
have been settled by cable.

When I got your first cable on Sunday asking me to get in touch with
Miss Marbury and Miss Hurst with regard to the disposal of a series of
magazine articles I immediately tried to got Miss Marbury on the 'phone
and found that she was in Canada and would not be back for at least two
weeks. I then got in touch with Miss Hurst and went up to her apart-
ment to see her. We discussed the matter very fully and she did not
think that there was much chance of selling such a series of articles
without the editors being able to see the material. H_owever, we drafted
a telegram to the Saturday Evening Post.

Then it occurred to me that I had better look up Taylor’s contract
with the N.A.NA., which I had seen in the file and which fortunately I
had taken with me (It was Sunday and the next day was Labor Day and I have
no key to the office). I discovered that undoubtedly everyone connected
with the Wrangel Island expedition was bound, morally at least, to give
the N.A.N.A. the first option on Crawford’s story.

As I have already told you, I have been doing some work for the
N.A.N.A. and they called me up that night to edit and amplify Noice’s
story which was then coming over the wires. While in their office I
took occasion to sound Pickering out as to what he expected to receive
and found that he fully counted upon the whole story. He was even then
wondering why Noice had curtailed his story and had not forwarded an
amplification as requested.

Pickering feels that his association should have first chance because
they have gone to a great deal of trouble in "smoking up” the story and
it hardly seems fair that they should do this and then have someone else
reap the benefit. Of course, if someone else bids above them they will
then have no complaint. But in my opinion they can afford to pay about
as much as any other association and will actually offer more than anyone
else. They represent 70 of the largest newspapers in the U.S. and Canada
and have agreater circulation than any magazine we could possibly deal with.
There will be much more publicity if they handle the story than could be
obtained through any other source.

This need not interfere with your editing the material for a series
of magazine stories afterwards. You will probably get no more than if
the material were entirely fresh—certainly not enough to justify your
passing up $5,000 from the Alliance.

Pickering was very frank with me. He said he could not say without
some idea of the extent of the material (we do not know what material
Noice brought back) just what it would be worth to his organization but
had tentatively fixed the sum at $5,000.